Square Accelerates Push To Integrate Small Business Finance

Square’s refresh of its Square Credit Card, which was announced last week, is part of parent company Block’s broader strategy to more closely integrate payments, banking, credit and bill management within its platform, American Banker reported Monday (Aug. 17), citing its interview with Andrea Raj, head of product for Square Money.

Square is also working to address the need for businesses to manage cash positions and avoid overdraft risk. The company is doing so by adding tracking of incoming and outgoing B2B payments to its existing consumer checkout offering, according to the report.

“Businesses face a mismatch of money out and money in,” Raj said, per the report. “We’re trying to smooth all of that out. What we’re tracking is how businesses earn all of their income. It’s no longer just funds coming through a point of sale.”

As PYMNTS reported Tuesday (Aug. 11), Square enhanced its Square Credit Card and its Bill Pay feature by enabling businesses to use the credit card to pay vendors that don’t accept cards, as well as those that do.

This lets sellers pay rent, insurance, marketing expenses and other vendor expenses, regardless of whether the vendors accept cards, while Square routes the money to the vendor’s choice of a direct deposit into their bank account (ACH) or a check in the mail.

Square also announced Tuesday that the refreshed Square Credit Card now offers unlimited 3% cash back on Square Bill Pay transactions and 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.

The American Banker report said that Square’s refresh of the Square Credit Card came at a time when Stripe, which also sells payment and eCommerce technology to primarily small- to medium-sized businesses, is reportedly part of a group negotiating a potential acquisition of PayPal and, separately, reached a $7 billion deal to buy artificial intelligence firm OpenRouter.

With these moves, Stripe could build scale for AI as payment companies and banks are investing in agentic commerce, according to the report.

At least one report links Block to the group negotiating the acquisition of PayPal, meaning it could acquire a stake as well, per the report.

Bloomberg News reported Sunday (Aug. 16), citing sources familiar with the matter, that Stripe finalized its bid to acquire OpenRouter.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing unnamed sources, that a group that includes Stripe and Advent International is in talks with PayPal regarding their proposal to buy PayPal.

CNBC reported in July, citing unnamed sources, that Block was participating in the offer for PayPal made by Stripe and Advent.

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